Good Thing Our Mormons Bar-Hop With Us

The Reason Foundation has just declared that social drinkers earn more than those who do not drink. On the average, social drinkers earn 7-11% more than abstainers. Theory: drinking increases social capital – those who drink are more able to make connections that help their careers.

The Oenophile would love to believe this to be true, but she thinks that Reason has fallen ill to the usual logical fallacies:
1. reversing cause and effect; and
2. confusing correlation with causation.

Instead of saying that drinking causes one to earn more, isn’t it a little more probable that those who earn more have more opportunity to drink? Considering that the authors measured how often people go to bars (i.e. no-good drunkards in trailer parks are not in the “social drinker” category), the more logical way to interpret the data is that higher earners socialize outside of work and home more often; that those with long-hour jobs tend to meet clients or associates over drinks.